Bill Gates recently predicted that online learning will make place-based colleges less significant, and five years from now, students will be able to find the best lectures in the world online. I applaud Mr. Gates. But what's taking us so long?

    As early as 1997, MIT (麻省理工) decided to post videos of all university lectures online, for free, for all people. But today, how many students have you met who mastered advanced mathematics or nuclear physics from an MIT online video? Unfortunately, the answer is not many.

    The problem is the poor quality of online education websites and the experience they provide to students. Those who go to the MIT website and watch courses online are surely very smart people, but it's not like playing a video game such as World of Warcraft. Only the most ardent students, those who are highly motivated, will devote themselves to studying these boring online videos.

    The real question is why we aren't spending more to develop better online education platforms. Where is the Avatar of education? Think about this. The market for Hollywood films per year is worth around 30 billion USD. Education in the world is a trillion-dollar-a-year market, hundreds of times bigger than Hollywood movies. Yet the most expensive digital learning system ever built cost well under 100 million dollars.

    Bill Gates' prediction is going to happen. There is no doubt about it. But it will only happen when we create high level educational content and experiences that engage and excite more than has ever been possible in the real world.

    Breakthroughs in science and technology are paving the way for modern cities to support bigger populations. Now, we see the most exciting urban innovations to show you exactly how they'll improve your city's infrastructure(基础设施).

Lighting Up The Night

    Anthony Di Mari dreamed up an electric tree to help irrigate public parks and light them at night. These electric trees contain a special infill (填充物) that collects water from rainfall. The water is then distributed through a shallow underground irrigation system with the help from the trees' swaying movement. An electric motor turns energy from the waving of the artificial trees into electricity, which is used to light up the trees' outer LEDs.

Thinking Outside The Box

    As more people flock to urban areas, city planners will need to get increasingly creative about how to satisfy residents' health and transportation needs within decreasing available space. One way to achieve this is by updating infrastructure to support biking and walking by building suspended(悬浮的) roundabouts like hovering in the Netherlands. By lifting bicycle and pedestrian traffic above busy roadways, cities can significantly decrease over-crowded traffic condition.

Waving Hello To Clean Energy

    Cities that don't receive enough sunlight may find an attractive alternative in wave power. Since ocean waves rarely experience disruption(中断), electric engines driven by their clockwork push-and-pull can reliably provide power throughout the year. Further, thanks to advances in wave power technology, engineers have been able to move wave power engines farther offshore, where the waves pack the most punch, making the engines extremely efficient. So in the future, heavily populated coastal cities may use wave to meet their energy needs.

    Malka and Shaindle are sisters. Although they live an hour's drive from each other and don't see each other often, they are in touch. Malka has a large family. Shaindle, however, has had difficulty having children.

    Malka had just given birth to another son. Shaindle , married three years and still childless, was receiving fertility(生育) treatments. Involved with work, doctor's visits, and medical treats, she was unable to make the trip to visit her sister after she had given birth.

    Malka knew her sister's problem and was quite understanding. Shaindle and her husband Feivel would be at the haptismal (洗礼) ceremony，of course.

    On the day of the haptism, Shaindle and Feivel arrived early, earlier than Malka and her family. Malka's mother-in-law, Yehudit, was already at the hall. “Hello,” said Shaindle cheerfully, never thinking what was about to happen.

    Yehudit turned to her angrily and said, “What a selfish sister you are! Never once did you see fit to visit Makla this entire week! No wonder you have no children!”

    Shaindle went into shock at her words. She turned away, her eyes filled with tears. The accusation（控诉） had cut Shaindle like a knife. She was psychologically bleeding. Poor Shaindle couldn't calm down. It took a while before she could regain her calmness. She couldn't look at Yehudit; it was just too painful for her to do so.

    The minute the words had escaped Yehudit's mouth, she knew she had crossed a red line. She had stepped on very raw toes and felt regretted for her words –but it was too late. Her attempts to apologize were ineffective. The celebration had suddenly turned sour in just a matter of seconds. After all these years, the memory of that happening lingers on …

    Animals have been used, and sometimes abused(虐待), in movie-making since the early days of the industry. However, the American Humane Association has worked for many years to protect animals in films. And, the digital age might make animal actors unnecessary.

    The new film “Dolphin Tale” tells about a dolphin that loses her tail because of an injury from a crab-trap. A doctor provides her with an artificial tail that saves her life. The film is based on a real event. And the star of the film, Winter, is a real dolphin that lost her tail. The American Humane Society worked with the movie's makers to make sure Winter stayed safe and healthy during filming. The animal protection group does this for all animal actors in America.

    A thick book of rules and guidelines tells Hollywood moviemakers how to treat animals. Karen Rosa leads the American Humane Society's film and television group. He said, “Everything from the smallest insect to the largest mammal shall be protected. We believe that for the sake of entertainment, everybody should go home alive.

    This was not always the policy in the early days of film. In 1939, a horse was forced off a mountain, falling to his death, in the movie “Jesse James.” The next year, guidelines were established to guarantee safe and healthy conditions for animals in movies.

    A new film “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” tells about the creation of super intelligent apes through science. However, no real animals were among the performers. Computer generated imagery provided the chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans that movie goers see. Clare Richardson is the president of the Diane Fossey Gorilla Fund. She says computer generated imagery should decrease the use of animals in the film industry. She praises movie makers for the use of computer-made animals.

    Two new studies suggest that modem running shoes could increase the risk of injuries to runners.

    One study involved sixty-eight healthy young women and men who ran at least twenty-four kilometers a week. The runners were observed on a treadmill machine (跑步机). Sometimes they wore running shoes. Other times they ran barefoot.

    Researchers from the JKM Technologies Company in Virginia, the University of Virginia and the University of Colorado did the study.

They found that running shoes create more stress that could damage knees, hips and ankle joints than running barefoot. They observed that the effect was even greater than the effect reported earlier for walking in high heels.

    The study appeared in the official scientific journal of the American Academy of Physical Medicine.

    The other study appeared in the journal Nature. It compared runners in the United States and Kenya. The researchers were from Harvard University in Massachusetts, Moi University in Kenya and the University of Glasgow in Scotland.

    They divided the runners into three groups. One group had always run shoeless. Another group had always run with shoes. And the third group had changed to shoeless running.

    Runners who wear shoes usually come down heel first. That puts great force on the back of the foot. But the study found that barefoot runners generally land on the front or middle of their foot. That way they ease into their landing and avoid striking their heel.

    Harvard's Daniel Lieberman led the study. He says the way most running shoes are designed may explain why those who wear them land on their heels. The heel of the shoe is bigger and heavier than other parts of the shoe, so it would seem more likely to come down first. Also, the heel generally has thick material under it to soften landings.

    But the researchers do not suggest that runners immediately start running barefoot. They say it takes some training. And there can be risks, like running when your feet are too cold to feel if you get injured.

    The study was partly supported by Vibram, which makes a kind of footwear that it says is like running barefoot. The findings have gotten a lot of attention. But the researchers say there are many problems in the way the press has reported in their paper. So they have tried to explain their findings on a Harvard Website.

    Honey (蜂蜜) from the African forest is not only a kind of natural sugar, it is also delicious. Most people, and many animals, like eating it. However, the only way for them to get that honey is to find a wild bees' nest (巢) and take the honey from it. Often, these nests are high up in trees, and it is difficult to find them. In parts of Africa, though, people and animals looking for honey have a strange and unexpected helper—a little bird called a honey guide.

    The honey guide does not actually like honey, but it does like the wax (蜂蜡) in the beehives (蜂房). The little bird cannot reach this wax, which is deep inside the bees' nest. So, when it finds a suitable nest, it looks for someone to help it. The honey guide gives a loud cry that attracts the attention of both passing animals and people. Once it has their attention, it flies through the forest, waiting from time to time for the curious animal or person as it leads them to the nest. When they finally arrive at the nest, the follower reaches in to get at the delicious honey as the bird patiently waits and watches. Some of the honey, and the wax, always falls to the ground, and this is when the honey guide takes its share.

    Scientists do not know why the honey guide likes eating the wax, but it is very determined in its efforts to get it. The birds seem to be able to smell wax from a long distance away. They will quickly arrive whenever a beekeeper is taking honey from his beehives, and will even enter churches when beeswax candles are being lit.